May 18, 2012

Fun with LinkSys SSID

I am 53 years old today. It's a Friday. I'll tell a story instead of blog about Autodesk Labs.

Curtis Baldwin was our next door neighbor when we lived in Scottsdale. When we got a wireless router, I set the service-set identifier (SSID) that it broadcasts to "Hey Curtis." This is the name that anyone within range sees when he/she looks for available wireless networks. Curtis didn't have a laptop yet, but I figured that whenever he did get one, the first time he went to connect, he would see my SSID, "Hey Curtis," and laugh.

When we moved to California we brought our wireless router with us. Though Curtis was no longer our neighbor, I left the SSID as "Hey Curtis" since our laptops were already set up and working, so why change anything? In our new condo I did notice another SSID called "close to the water," so I was tempted to change ours to "closer to the water," but I resisted the temptation.

Recently we got a new wireless router. Denise and Cheryl are our next door neighbors. Since I never really got to cash in on the Curtis Baldwin fun, I decided to repeat the process. I set the SSID for the new router to "Hey Denise and Cheryl." As it turns out, Denise and Cheryl happened to be out of town when I made the switch. As luck would have it, when Denise and Cheryl got back in town, they went to connect their laptops to their own wireless network. Their SSID is "close to the water," but it was not working that day. When they went to connect, they only saw "Hey Denise and Cheryl." They immediately assumed someone had hacked their network and had changed their SSID. They were in a panic. They rebooted their router and "close to the water" showed up once again, but they still saw "Hey Denise and Cheryl" and thought someone was watching them on another network. They noticed "Hey Curtis" was gone but did not associate that with their jocular neighbor. Sometimes actions do have unintended consequences. I am so sorry for scaring my neighbors. Apparently Denise and Cheryl are not the first to be alarmed by a suddenly-appearing SSID:

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Fun with LinkSys SSID

I am 53 years old today. It's a Friday. I'll tell a story instead of blog about Autodesk Labs.

Curtis Baldwin was our next door neighbor when we lived in Scottsdale. When we got a wireless router, I set the service-set identifier (SSID) that it broadcasts to "Hey Curtis." This is the name that anyone within range sees when he/she looks for available wireless networks. Curtis didn't have a laptop yet, but I figured that whenever he did get one, the first time he went to connect, he would see my SSID, "Hey Curtis," and laugh.

When we moved to California we brought our wireless router with us. Though Curtis was no longer our neighbor, I left the SSID as "Hey Curtis" since our laptops were already set up and working, so why change anything? In our new condo I did notice another SSID called "close to the water," so I was tempted to change ours to "closer to the water," but I resisted the temptation.

Recently we got a new wireless router. Denise and Cheryl are our next door neighbors. Since I never really got to cash in on the Curtis Baldwin fun, I decided to repeat the process. I set the SSID for the new router to "Hey Denise and Cheryl." As it turns out, Denise and Cheryl happened to be out of town when I made the switch. As luck would have it, when Denise and Cheryl got back in town, they went to connect their laptops to their own wireless network. Their SSID is "close to the water," but it was not working that day. When they went to connect, they only saw "Hey Denise and Cheryl." They immediately assumed someone had hacked their network and had changed their SSID. They were in a panic. They rebooted their router and "close to the water" showed up once again, but they still saw "Hey Denise and Cheryl" and thought someone was watching them on another network. They noticed "Hey Curtis" was gone but did not associate that with their jocular neighbor. Sometimes actions do have unintended consequences. I am so sorry for scaring my neighbors. Apparently Denise and Cheryl are not the first to be alarmed by a suddenly-appearing SSID: